Clutter is Creative: Friday Night Cookies

After some very long days and an altogether long week for both my husband and I, it became clear that there was a need for Friday Night cookies.... Here is a random recipe that I half took from a "Food of America" book we got as a wedding gift, and then half made up! Sometimes inventing things in the kitchen is the best way to cook - in fact, I tend to sway more in the direction of creative cooking than cooking by rules!

You will need....

125g Butter

1 Tsp Vanilla extract/essence

275g firmly packed brown sugar

1 egg

150g Plain flour

35g self-raising flour

1 Tsp Bicarbonate of soda

35g Cocoa Powder

110g Macademia Nuts (or however many you want or can get!)

LOTS of Chocolate! (approx. 150g-200g of dark, milk and white is what I used....for better or worse!)

Method...

1 Beat Butter, egg, vanilla and sugar in bowl until smooth.

2 Sift in flours, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa powder.

3 Coarsley chop and stir in nuts.

4 Brake up chunks of Chocolate. Like I mentioned in the ingredients, I had baking choc (milk) in the house, used a nice 75% cocoa dark choc and a cheap Tesco white choc block making up approx 200g. Stir this into the mix.

5 Drop rounded tablespoons of mixture onto your baking tray about 4cm apart - don't flatten, it'll help them stay gooey...

Prep time: 15 mins at most

Bake for: 10 mins - take them out just at the tops have baked so they are still fudgy in the centre!

Makes: 24 on the button!

There you have it!

Whilst I was baking, I looked out the kitchen window and realised our neighbour John who owns the field beside our house, had moved 5 of his horses in to graze... usually there are 2 or three very pregnant ladies and their young - we typically call it his 'birthing field,' but yesterday he had 5 beautiful horses for us to watch. Jozy continues to be intrigued by horses... here is my favourite picture of the day.... notice how easy it could be for Jozy to do something about her face-off and yet how innocent and good of a dog she is....

...since she didn't notice the gap in our mesh fence, I decided to put on the welly boots and walk on through to the horses with her. They were very sweet - they sniffed at eachother and mutually agreed that there was no threat....

..and yes Stephen, there's even a ginger horse!

In other news, Chris wanted to let you all know how beautifully our potted plants and garden day turned out...here's to creation at it's absolute best: